Nirguni Bhajans by Prahlad Singh Tipaniya

Prahlad Singh Tipanya and party
ARCE00003

Bhajana word common to most North Indian languagesmeans a devotional song. One conventional way to categorize devotional feeling is with the terms sagun and nirgun. The nirgun deity is invoked in negatives such as invisible, indescribable, ungraspable, beyond form, inconceivable, and unnameable. Nirgun poetry evokes a deeper level of experience by cutting off normal ways of thinking, pushing the listener to a place that is no-place, to a consciousness where all analytical categories (including nirgun and sagun) collapse. It does so not with high-flown language but with everyday imagery. Kabir is the premier nirgun poet of North India. The five bhajans provided here, all by Kabir, are sung by Prahlad Singh Tipanya and party, from a village in Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh. A Kabir bhajan is normally preceded by one or more sakhis, or pithy couplets of Kabir, which set the theme. Two of the bhajans are preceded by several sakhis, which are sung more slowly, with little or no instrumentation. The main singer of the group or "party" is Prahlad Singh Tipaniya, who is the lead singer and accompanies himself on the tambour and khartal. The other accompanists play the harmonium, dholak, manjira and occasionally a violin.

Year Released2002Record LabelA.R.C.E.Source Archive
Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE)Copyright
Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology